The fact that technology is moving beyond the personal computer to everyday items is becoming a reality as computing devices are becoming progressively smaller and more powerful. Ubiquitous computing (also known as “pervasive computing”) is the result of computer technology advancing at exponential speeds—a trend toward all man-made and some natural products having hardware and software associated with them. Ubiquitous computing goes beyond the realm of personal computers: it is the idea that almost any item, such as clothing, tools, appliances, vehicles, buildings, the human body, eating utensils, can be associated with a device, that logically represents the item. The device can in turn be connected to an infinite network of other devices to create, as much as possible, an environment where the connectivity of the devices is unobtrusive and always available.
In the field of ubiquitous computing, emerging network discovery protocols (also known as “service discovery protocols”), such as Plug and Play (UPnP), Apple Rendezvous™, Jini™ Bluetooth™, Salutation™, SLP™, enable any device on an Internet Protocol (IP) network, associated with a ubiquitous computing environment for example, to discover and control networked consumer electronics devices, such as printers, projectors, television sets, stereo sets, Web cameras, etc. Due to these technologies, a mobile user equipped, for example, with a networked mobile device, such as a laptop computer or a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) with a wireless network connection, such as 802.11b for example, can discovery all the devices on the network and decide whether to control the discovered devices. For example, the mobile user can use the network discovery protocol to “discover” a printer on the IP network and use it to print a document stored on the mobile user's mobile computer.
However, these network discovery protocols do not provide information about the physical location of the devices, as will be described in more detail. For these and other reasons, a method and/or a system that provides information about the physical location of physical entities would be valuable.